This application relates generally to magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. More specifically, this application relates to magnetic resonance angiography and venography.
Currently, MR data for the imaging of arterial and venous vasculature may be acquired in separate scans. Specifically, MR angiography (MRA) may be used to acquire arterial vasculature data, and MR venography (MRV) may be used to acquire venous vasculature data. The time to perform either a MRA or a MRV scan may be relatively long (e.g., approximately 10-20 minutes). These long scan times may cause patient discomfort, errors in data acquisition due to patient movement, and other issues.
MRA and MRV may, among other things, reveal different neuronal and vascular abnormalities and provide complementary diagnostic assessments of brain diseases. For example, MRA may depict the feeding vessels of a tumor, and MRV may identify the draining veins of the tumor. However, while each of MRA and MRV scans may provide its own clinical significance, performing both scans may significantly increase the scan time for a given subject (e.g., a patient). The increased scan time for undergoing both MRA and MRV scans can exacerbate issues with patient discomfort and acquisition errors, especially when large volume coverage and/or high resolutions are required. These and other issues may adversely affect the use of both MRA and MRV in a routine clinical exam.
As such, it may be desirable to provide new approaches to the substantially simultaneous acquisition of both MRA and MRV data in a single scan session.